COSTA MESA — Like a killer love song? Then take your tissues to Orange Coast College this weekend.

When the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company performs there Friday and Saturday, the contemporary troupe's mixed bill will include "So In Love," an ode to Eros set to five Cole Porter songs.

Not every song is melancholy. Take "From This Moment On":

Now that we are close, no more nights morose . . .

From this happy day, no more blue songs, only whoop-dee-doo songs.

But then there's "Ev'ry Time We Say Good Bye":

Ev'ry time we say good bye, I die a little.

Ev'ry time we say good bye, I wonder why a little ,

Why the gods above me, who must be in the know,

Think so little of me, they allow you to go.

The songs were taken from "Red, Hot and Blue," an AIDS benefit album from 1991 on which Porter is interpreted by 21 diverse artists and groups (Lar Lubovitch selected tracks by Tom Waits, Annie Lennox, k.d. lang, the Neville Brothers and Jimmy Somerville).

"I'm a fan of all kinds of music," the 51-year-old Chicago native said recently in an interview from his studio in New York. "But Cole Porter is an icon of American musical theater. He wrote very special music, very meaningful lyrics. I think about ('So In Love') as five love stories."

Over the years (his 10-member troupe is 27 years old), Lubovitch has set works to a variety of music. His program in Costa Mesa will also include Steve Reich's minimalism ("Marimba," 1976), Ravel's "Bolero" ("Fandango," 1990) and Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube Waltz" ("Beau Danube," 1981).

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Lubovitch said "the outlook for dance is not very good right now." He cites "the economic conditions in this country" and renewed efforts by religious and political conservatives to obliterate the National Endowment for the Arts.

"The arts are taking a beating in the hands of right-wing ideologues," he said. "They always attack the arts; it's almost a historical fact at this point. Putting it bluntly, they fear freedom of thought, and that's the very essence of art."